New Breed
by MissFortuneSirPrize
Summary: Contrary to popular belief, she doesn't board the train alone, looking for somewhere to sit, nor does she watch the people going past who don't seem to spare a second glance at her plain clothes, or her ridiculously frizzy hair.
1. chapter 1

Contrary to popular belief, she doesn't board the train alone, looking for somewhere to sit, nor does she watch the people going past who don't seem to spare a second glance at her plain clothes, or her ridiculously frizzy hair. She doesn't count the minutes, sitting in a cabin alone, waiting for the train to start moving so she can draw the curtains closed and forget all about the people that hadn't wanted to sit with her.

Instead, it goes more like this:

"What time did they say they would be here?"

Hermione tugged her hair, tucking it behind her ears as she scanned the platform, looking for the distinctive color of bright green that always seemed to be around them in one way or another. When she couldn't find anything she took a step back and looked up at her parents, a thin smile stretching across her face.

"The letter said they would be here as soon as the platform opened."

"Not to worry. They do have to travel from overseas, maybe the timezones got a bit muddled up."

She opens her mouth to answer, the tell-tale burning beginning behind her eyes, when a flurry of sound makes her jump and she snaps her head up. Looking around wildly, offendingly bright in the sunlight due to the bright green hoodie with a strange, purple target on the front, is Hayley. She's accompanied by a whole crowd of people, none of which look alike but they all look around in wonder.

"Is that her, dear?"

Hayley sees her in the next second, a smile spreading across her face, and she darts through the crowd to meet Hermione half way, their families following behind.

"I thought you were late!"

"Are you kidding, I wouldn't miss this for the world!"

They'd been communicating via letters for the past three years now, sending pictures back and forth. Hayley had been the first to drop hints about getting her Hogwarts letter, nothing concrete, and she had been beyond excited when Hermione had revealed that she got one too. They'd never met each other face to face until today.

"It's great to finally meet you. And you, Mr. and Mrs. Granger."

"It's nice to meet you too, dear. We're so glad Hermione won't be alone."

Hayley grinned, her hair falling down her back and shoulders in haphazard curls as she rocked back on her heels, "She's stuck with me for life. So, this is my family."

She opens her arms wide, gesturing to the group behind her. Even with all their letters and how much they'd confided in each other, Hayley had never been open or talkative about her family, and Hermione hadn't wanted to pry.

"These is my mama, Toni, and this is my dad Bruce." The tall man with the glasses waved, awkward next to the languid grace of the brown haired woman that stood at his side, their arms linked together as she smiled with no small hint of pride at the two young girls.

She introduced the rest of the group, a muddle of aunts and uncles that weren't strictly blood family but family nonetheless, with ease that came from years of repetition. Hermione chanted the names in her mind, trying to commit them all to memory; Toni, Bruce, Darcy, Bucky, Pepper, Frank.

Toni, Bruce, Darcy, Bucky, Pepper, Frank.

"I think it's time to board, dear." She turned to look at the train, then looked back at her parents and started to say her goodbyes. Behind her, Hayley was doing the same thing, although rather differently.

"Did you get everything?"

"Yes, I double checked."

"Remember to be careful, there's always trouble around, and we don't want you to get hurt chasing it."

She opened her mouth, but Darcy interrupted before she could say that she would find a way to keep up.

"Come on, Bruce, lighten up a bit."

As her father turns to glare at the archer, Frank and Bucky step forward, almost but not-outright vying for her attention. "I'm going to miss you. Promise you'll write back to me?"

"Promise, kid."

"Of course, Hayley."

She stood next to Hermione, grabbing her best friend's hand and gripping it as tight as she could in excitement, listening as the woman calling the names got through the As and into the Bs.

"Hayley Banner?"

She dropped Hermione's hand and made her way through the crowd of waiting children, pausing at the foot of the stairs to take a deep breath, Natasha's voice echoing in her head. 'Keep your head high. Never show them you're afraid.' She climbed the stairs and took her seat on the stool, freezing as the wrinkled hat was placed low on her head.

'Ah, Ms Banner. Interesting. It's been a long time since one of your kind has been in our halls.'

'My kind?'

'The mutants.'


	2. chapter 2

The thing is, she's never been away from the tower for any significant amount of time, certainly not for long enough to not sleep in her own bed surrounded by the things that make her feel safe. Here in the castle, late at night with the silence ringing loudly in her ears, she feels alone and small in a way she's never experienced before. At home, regardless of the time, she could always find someone awake and alert enough to calm her down. Here, there is only her thoughts to accompany her as the other girls in the room blissfully sleep on, unaware of her silent dread in the curtained area closest to the large windows. No one else had wanted it, afraid of heights as they were, and being up in the air had never scared her. How could it, when her first memory of the tower was pressing her face to the thick glass windows and gaping at the cars travelling by far below, so small they looked like ants. The morning comes slowly, light creeping into the room so slowly she doesn't even notice it at first until the pale light glints off the glass case she has sitting on the ledge of the window next to her pillow.

Breakfast doesn't do a thing to settle her nerves as she hunches over her plate and avoids everyone's eyes as they look at her, wondering what's wrong. She wants to be sitting at her own kitchen table, with Bucky on her left and Frank on her right, Wade across from them nudging her leg with his foot whenever water dripped from her fingertips. She wanted her family. Hermione's voice snapped her out of her thoughts and she tried for a smile, but even she could tell that the effect fell far short of what she had intended.

"Is everything alright? You look sick."

"Just not used to all of this, I think."

Hermione nods knowingly, understanding what she was getting at. Both of them had grown up in the non-magical world, so to leave that behind and come into a world where everything seems to have not advanced past the middle ages was jarring. She missed the almost silent hum of the appliances throughout the house, and JARVIS' constant checking in when her parents weren't around. Apart from Hermione, the AI was really her only friend. Sure, there was always other kids around at the school she'd been attending before this, but she had never really fit in there. Even if she had, there was always the lingering suspicion that their attention was because of her last name, not because they liked her as a person or as a friend. None of that mattered, though, not really. She had her family, and she had Frank, and Wade, Peter and Foggy and Darcy. She had Hermione.

-POV switch to Hermione-

It hadn't clicked for her that Hayley was one of those Starks, even if she had a different last name to keep herself out of the public eye as much as she could. Living with them couldn't have been an easy place to grow up in, but taking her father's name rather than her mother's would've given her more freedom from the eyes always watching. Still, finding out your friend came from a family of geniuses, superheroes, assassins and gifted people hadn't been an easy thing to come to terms with. Mostly, the thing that surprises her the most is how normal Hayley is, as if she doesn't seem to know or realise there's not a person in the world that doesn't recognise her true last name.

"We've got potions first. Sit next to me?"

She doesn't mean to ask, to sound so insecure and afraid, but rather than ridicule her for the obvious tone of desperation Hayley just smiles at her and takes her hand, the two of them walking out of the hall hand in hand. Hayley had been the first true friend she'd ever made. She hadn't had much luck with bonding with the children she grew up around, labeled as too weird and not worth the time, and a small part of her was apprehensive about joining the pen pal program, but it had led her to Hayley and a friendship that had struck up almost immediately. She understands why Hayley hadn't told her about her family, and why she kept so many secrets, but she won't deny that it hurts.

"Nervous?"

She jumps a little as Hayley's query snaps her out of her thoughts, almost running into the wall on her right, and if Hayley noticed she didn't say anything about that either. She considers the girl beside her, who stayed awake all night because she wasn't used to staying away from home but seemed perfectly steady when faced with a class filled with things she wouldn't understand and a man that didn't seem to like them at all, but the more she thinks about it, the more it makes sense.

There had been a few times, not many, but a few, when the letters traded back and forth would be delayed by what Hayley said was an unplanned vacation, but now she realises that maybe the delays were because she was the only child of two high profile people and living with many others. Why would she fear this, walking into the unknown, when she's faced worse? Everyone in the world knew about what happened in New York, although she hadn't known who Hayley's parents were then.

What was a little dislike from a teacher, when you've faced a god and came away intact?


	3. chapter 3

He's known about the other magic users, the borrowers of the force and the ones born with the natural ability, the abusers and the peaceful, for longer than humans could count or comprehend. They flare up from time to time, appearing behind his closed eyelids like flashes of memories; a man with crooked fingers, a woman standing firm against her attacker, the painful kick of a boy mutilating his soul in the worst way possible. Each of them, regardless of their knowledge of the fact, are connected to him in ways they can't even imagine, but for the most part they're insignificant. He's connected to them, but that doesn't mean he cares. He blinks his eyes open as a particular burst of light pulls at him, stiffening as he goes through the sensations of the soul being pulled into existence from wherever they came from, holding in his hiss of pain. The feeling isn't unlike a hand digging into his chest and wrapping around his ribs, tugging at the very things that make him alive, the essence that holds him together. Images flash past his eyes, faster than he can keep track of; a young girl with black curls and dark blue eyes, a pair of hands manipulating water, snakes and lions and eagles, and blood, so much blood that he can almost feel it as if it clings to his own lashes, runs down his own spine and pools around his feet. He disengages himself with a shudder, pulling himself back from the soul he'd connected with, and finds himself panting as if he'd been in battle. No, he didn't care about them, but this one was different.

POV switch*

"I'll be there in a minute, I just need need to find a book for homework." Hermione frowns but nods and packs up her things, leaving the library with only a wary glance back, like she's afraid Hayley is going to disappear on her if she turns her back. Once she's sure that she's alone, apart from the librarian watching her closely, she picks up the book she had hidden on the chair next to her and opens it with careful fingers. The book is ancient, bound in something that feels suspiciously scaled but a lot like dried skin, and the pages are brittle as she turns them. Diagrams and words fill the thick paper, etched in dark ink that hasn't faded even after centuries, and something tells her that this particular book hasn't been opened or used in quite a while; the dust from the edges of the pages sticks to her fingertips as she browses through, stopping on one set of instructions in particular. The steps are complicated and lengthy, detailed steps on exactly where to place things, what to say, what to do. She looks around quickly and shoves the book into her bag, tucking it between her copy of The Light Fantastic and a bundle of papers. She follows the printed lines carefully, accumulating the needed items over a few weeks so no one will suspect her, and soon enough she has it all. When she's sure she's alone, she practices the words, until she can recite them word perfect without glancing at the paper. She knows that there's a reason the book was hidden as it was, why no one had touched it in a long time, but she was her mother's daughter and her curiosity could only take so much repressing.

Later, when everyone is sleeping, she sneaks into the room, holding a bundle to her chest and looking around to make sure she was unseen by any eyes that might be watching. The room is empty, open and silent in the darkness that seems to shift and move beyond the reach of light from the candles sitting on the bare floor, and she kneels to the floor and places the bundle down with careful movements. It doesn't take long to set everything in it's place, even if she has to stop and reference something from the book she pulls out from under her arm, and soon enough a fire is blazing in the bronze bowl sitting in the middle of the circle. Scratches dig deep into the wooden surface of the floor, creating a ring of runes around the bowl, and she runs her fingers along them one by one, whispering their names and watching as they flare to life in a blue light that seems to pulse. The flames seem to move and shift as she picks up the wrapped package, pulling the thick paper back to reach down and pluck the jumble of items up, dropping them into the fire with only slight hesitation. There's a tense pause, the moment dragging for what seems like hours until the fire splutters and then flares green, blazing higher and brighter. Her words fill the room, a low chant that grows into a crescendo, deafening and almost silent all at once, their power washing over her skin like waves over a rock. Fingers curl around the hilt of the ornate knife, catching on the jewels set into the bone of some creature long gone from this plane, and a faint gasp echoes through the room as she slices through her palm. The blood wells up quickly, pooling in the cradle of her palm, and it sizzles when she holds her hand above the flames and let it drip down into the bowl, burning away before it has a chance to collect in the bottom among the ashes of the snake skin and multicolored fur. "To you, Loki."

An age away, hidden in the shadows of places that don't exist anymore, the trickster smiles.


	4. chapter 4

When she slips back into her bed, falling into dreams, she finds herself in a great hall reliving a memory that isn't hers. The woman is unfamiliar, but she recognises Loki as she hovers in the background. For a moment, she's simply an outside observer until a pull and a whirl of the scenery puts her in the point of view of the woman as she watches him pace.

"What do you see when you look at me?" He's in one of his moods, darkly angry and scowling at everything that moves. The lights seem to dim as he walks past, as if there's something sinister about him that smothers the light with his proximity. He closes his hand around her chin, forces her to look him in the eye, at the faint scar that runs down the side of his face so that it looks like he's always on the verge of a smile. His eyes are darker than anything she's seen, as if someone had created his face from cracked marble and two perfectly formed darkened galaxies, the kind that twinkle despite never having any light. "What do you want from me?"

These, she knows, are the days when she wants to hear the truth, doesn't want any of the meaningless platitudes and the fake smiles that she gets from everyone else, so she looks him directly in the eyes as she talks. "I see an angel that was created to be the most beautiful thing in existence. An absolute warrior that even the strongest of men shall tremble at the sight." She pushed him, now, trapping him against the wall with a firm hand against his stomach, and forced him to look at her as she spoke, "I see a man who hides his heart behind placating words and crafted lies for fear of getting it broken, but who let me close enough to hold it in my hands because he knows that I would never let anything happen to it. I see a man that any father would be proud of, even yours. I see perfection. And you are so perfect that it hurts." And that, she thought, was the problem. She knew his worth, a prince with more cunning than anyone in all the realms, but she also knew her own. She was not royalty, or the wife he had been urged to take by his family, and he chose her anyway. She was not beautiful, like the ladies of court, or diplomatic, or skilled at any of the jobs that were considered a woman's duty. She had never been able to sew no matter how much her mother had tried to teach her, and the dresses that were the standard for the other girls working around the palace weren't to her liking at all. She didn't take place in their idle gossip about the latest scandals, nor did she pledge her heart to the first man who took a liking to her. Her first love had always been the sword, and she had worked at mastering the weapon on her own time, stealing away in the dead of the night to train until her hands were aching and cracked, so unlike the smooth and unlined hands of the women of the court. He could have had anyone she wanted, the beautiful prince, and yet he had overlooked them all to take her as his bride, thrusting her into a world that she had never wanted.

"Does it hurt you, to be with me?"

Immediately, she shook her head, taking his head in her hands and pressing a soft kiss to the smooth skin of his forehead, looking him in the eyes to make sure she had his attention before she gave her answer. "Does it hurt me, to know the words that they call me when they think I cannot hear? Yes. I know what they think of me, that I was poorly chosen to stand beside you, that I am nothing but a plaything that you will eventually discard. Does it pain me to know that I will never be accepted as one of them, that I will forever be less because I am not of royal blood? Yes. Does it hurt me to know that I am yours just as much as you are mine? Never. I have never had much I can call my own. You are the one that I know I can always count on, and there is no treasure in all the universe that could be half as precious." She had let him go, before she had started speaking, and watched as he approached her now with his features full of a wondrous awe, his fingers trailing down her face so softly the touch felt like the falling of flower petals. His hand glittered in the lamp light as she drew closer, tilting her chin up to look at him as she slowly stood her up from her seat on the gilded bench and took her in his arms. "What do you see when you look at me?"

Her voice was a whisper in the almost-darkness, weighted with hopes and fears as they stared at each other in their proximity, and she closed her eyes against the soft brushes of lips along her cheekbone that stood out in contrast to the strong hand that cradled her throat. Not constricting, never painful, but heavy and warm nonetheless, like an anchor to reality when sensations threatened to pull her away. "Tell me a secret." The lines of his body were rigid and strong underneath hers when he pulled her close, brushing the stray strands of hair back behind her ears and sliding his fingers along the scar that curled around the back of her neck, lifting her arm to slide a metal cuff around her wrist that shifted and glimmered under the low lights. "I have never needed you to protect my heart, and I have never needed you to hold it in your hands. Don't you know that I've no heart without you?"

The memory isn't hers, she would've remembered this, but something in the set of his face and the way he speaks almost makes her wish it was. She loves her family, of course she does, but there's always been a faint glimmer of something else in the cards for her, something bigger than all of them, and she wonders if this was it. The thought should repulse her, scare her, considering what the man had done to her family, but it doesn't. There's only a faint sense of relief, underlaid with something that feels like reassurance.

She blinks away suddenly, opening her eyes to the rough stone wall, and looks down at her hand. The cut on her palm has stopped bleeding by now, and the pain is gone until she flexes her hand, but none of that is important as she stares down at her wrist.

The metal there shifts and glimmers under the low light of sunrise coming through the windows.


	5. Flash Forward

*Slight author's note* I'm aware that this is skipping ahead quite a bit and ignoring some aspects of the books, but I will be going back and doing those, this is just a bit of a flash forward.

After the dreams, after the metal cuff appears on her wrist, she doesn't hear from him for a long time. She makes it a point to perform the rituals every three weeks, to whisper words to him when she's alone and she thinks he might be listening, but ultimately life goes on without him. Falling asleep when she's meant to be studying wasn't planned, although a natural thing at this point despite Hermione frowning at her in disapproval. The dream, though, is new.

"What is this?" Her voice sounds small, embarrassingly broken in the silence as she stands in what seems to be a library, the trickster standing beside her as they both watch a woman sitting at a table by the window. Her hair is as black as an oil slick in the light shining in through the panes of glass, glittering with a thousand colors that she can't find names for, and her mouth moves slightly as she reads. She doesn't seem to notice that she's not alone, as she stands up from the table tapping her fingers to her lips in contemplation, the fabric of her dress swaying around her ankles as she crosses to a bookshelf. Her fingers aren't like his, lined and worn where his are pale and unblemished, as she runs her fingertips over the spines of the books like they're living things. "Where am I?"

He turns to look at her, looking down with a flicker in his eyes that she doesn't understand, and touches his fingers to her shoulder. The weight of his hand is solid, real, but where there should be warmth is only a blistering cold that drives the air from her lungs, and the room spins around them. Closing her eyes against the dizzying display of color, she blindly reaches out and grabs his coat, deaf to any remarks he might have about it, and when she opens them they're in an entirely different place.

It's a meadow, fruit trees contrasting with the vibrant green grass, and she almost doesn't see the figure lying among the flowers. This woman's hair is red, as deep and bright as blood, and her skin is tanned from what of her is visible as she basks in the rays of sunlight, her long skirt spread out around her like a spread of brown against the green.

The next is a man, barely more than a boy, with a face that doesn't match his age and looks far too young, laughing as he walks with a group of people with one hand in his pocket and a basket held in the other, overflowing with apples and lemons. His hair is brown, like dark chocolate, and curls down over his forehead and spills over his neck, messy as if he had just gotten out of bed. His clothes, too, are strange; a grey shirt that hangs off his frame like it's borrowed, a pair of brown trousers, black suspenders. He smiles at something that one of his friends has said, and if she were a poet she might have compared it to the first rays of sun on a winter morning, something that would warm you up as soon as you experienced it.

And on and on it goes, him transporting her to a dozen different places, the two of them watching a dozen different people. Men, women, black haired and blond, brown eyes, green eyes, endless variety.

"Why are you showing me this?"

"Did you not want to see?"

"I didn't say that."

"Then what's the problem?"

Anger builds up in her all of a sudden, the kind that she knows she inherited from her father, and only the knowledge that the man across from her is a God keeps her from trying to hit him like she wants to.

"What did you show me?"

"You."

The quiet answer was the last thing she expected to hear, she had anticipated another joke or sly changing of the subject, not the suddenly distant look that comes into his eyes as if he's not with her anymore, as if he's in those places with those people. He looks sad.

"What do you mean?"

He looks at her with a small frown, watching her carefully as she sits down in the chair he gestures to with his left hand, and clears his throat. "I've been waiting for you."

"You know where I've been, you've known that since New York."

He laughs, but the sound is neither happy nor particularly amused. "That's not what I meant."

"Then why don't you just tell me what you mean, I've had enough of the way you slip your way out of answering my questions."

Rather than look angry, like she suspected he might have at her outburst, he only smiles. The movement is barely a twitch of his lips, but she catches it in surprise.

"All of those people, their lives, their thoughts, all of it is connected to you. They are you, all the different versions of you that have existed through the years, and I have found each and every one. You weren't you at the start."

She opens her mouth to ask a question but thinks better of it and nods at him to continue, even though she thinks that she understands.

"You were a simple peasant boy then, but you had been attacked and sought my help above all others, and so I came to you. I helped you in defeating those who would seek to cast you down, and of all the souls that I had seen come and go, yours was the brightest. It was foolish at the time, I was young, but I promised that wherever you would end up, whatever you would become, I would find you."

"Did you- were we- I mean, I-"

He cuts her off, openly amused now.

"No, not at first. The first time, you believed it to be the worst sin a person could commit, and to lay with a god was the worst possible transgression. Few incarnations have chosen to be with me in that way, but I have known every version of you."

"The woman from the dream, was she one too? Did you love her?"

"If I were to offer you immortality, true immortality, would you take it?"

She thinks of her family, of the friends she's made and the things she might be leaving behind, but the offer is tempting. A flash of golden light stings at her eyes and she gazes at the golden apple he holds in his hand, offering it to her in a way that seems forced in it's relaxed manner. "All you have to do is eat it, and you'll never have to worry about death again."

"I can't. My family, they need me."

He smiles, sadly, as if he had known what her answer was going to be but had asked anyway.

"I've asked that to every version of you, and not one of them have accepted. How am I supposed to keep you safe if you don't?"

"You loved her."

"I loved her with everything that I was, I would've captured all the stars in the universe just to make her happy, I would've done anything she wanted, be anything she wanted."

She smiled, scratching at her neck, and looked at him until his face went blank again, hiding his outburst behind the careful mask. Ignoring the tears gathering at the corners of his eyes, she took a deep breath before she spoke.

"I understand, but I'm not her. None of us, no matter who we are, we'll never be her."

"You don't have to be, that's not what this is."

"Then what is this?"

"Love."

"You just said-"

"I know she's not coming back, I've tried. I don't expect you to be here, I never wanted any of you to be her, don't you understand? It's not the person, it's that soul you all carry around inside you, and every time I find you I fall all over again and I never get to keep you. Why can't I keep you, just this once?"


End file.
